I’ve been thinking about how I write these posts, and they seem too synopsis-like for me. The point of this blog wasn’t to just summarize what happens. I think. The point of this project has been sort of unclear from the beginning.

But, while I’m interested in pointing out particularly funny jokes and recurring things I missed the first time, I want to get slightly more macro about this. So that starts with this post, even though this episode had many great lines and it’s hard to not just discuss those.

Our three plots:

1) Liz meets Oprah on an airplane. Oprah gives her lots of advice. Oprah turns out to be a precocious and adorable middle schooler named Pam. She’s really cute.

2) Kenneth finds out that Jack faked a bunch of Olympic events — tetherball, beer pong, women’s soccer — to raise American morale and stops looking up to him. Jack tries to teach him that morality isn’t as simple as he thinks.

3) Jenna and Tracy pull some “Freaky Friday” weirdness (their words) to see who has it harder: black men or women.

The local news just informed that two years from today, we’ll be watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Summer Olympics. I love you, Olympics.

One of the best things about this episode is the interplay between Tracy and Jenna, which becomes more frequent as the show continues because they have such great chemistry. They both seem dumb, but are incredibly conniving and shallow, leading to hijinks.

But also I think there’s a lot of love there. At the end of this episode, they sing “Lean on Me” to each other, and Jack breaks it up.

The core of “30 Rock” is really the love between these people, and it’s easy to focus almost solely on Jack and Liz, but this episode really shows how important the other relationships are. Jack really cares what Kenneth thinks about him, despite of himself. Kenneth continues to love everybody. (And television. End list.) And Tracy and Jenna don’t get each other and are often petty, but they also love each other in their weird way.

And interestingly, Pam/Oprah tells Liz that Jenna and Tracy take the place of children in her life, an idea they return to in season seven. But that’s a type of love too, even if it’s a weird one to have for grown-ups.

Anyway, here are some screen caps of weird things that happened:

Grizz and Dotcom got a boat!

Liz dresses as Princess Leia to get out of jury duty. iconic.

Tracy is terrifying.

Honestly, I am always sad this isn’t really Oprah. But like, also it is really Oprah! Liz never met Oprah but Tina did! I have feelings.